The Spark

Inspired by the author's own story - when her life fell apart due to bereavement, loneliness and a very deep grief.... she credits this practice with rediscovering joy and giving her a new default happy mindset. This book is as a practical guide to help readers understand the purpose and importance of identifying their own 'sparks'. They will learn to develop their own bespoke 'commonplace reserve' - a mixture of scrapbooking and collecting - learn how to gather, organise and retain ideas. Most importantly, in our highly digitised and difficult times, they will gift themselves the means to discover joyfulness in the everyday and to appreciate what it means to be alive. Commonplace books were famously and traditionally kept by great thinkers and philosophers to organise ideas and collect inspiration, often as a 'diary of miscellany' or an intellectual scrapbook. They are notebooks/gift boxes where you collect and keep things that bring you joy. To organise and log quotes, words, song lyrics, poems, recipes, topics, book titles, and anything else you want to remember or find inspiring. Unlike a diary or journal, you don't write down your original thoughts but instead gather the things in from the outside world and organise them for reference and enjoyment later.